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Houses in Multiple Occupation (including hostels)
In the last few years the Council have given very serious
consideration to the question of improving tenement houses.
Many attempts have been made to obtain improvements by
exercising the Council's powers under the Public Health (London)
Act, 1936. These attempts, however, have been frequently
frustrated, partly because of the difficulty of ascertaining
exactly who was the legal owner at any particular time. A further
difficulty was the reluctance of some tenants to attend court.
One of the factors mainly accounting for the squalid
appearance of these houses was the condition of the entrance halls,
the communal staircases and kitchens. The artificial lighting of
the halls and staircases was adequate, but the decorations were
old and drab. These parts of the houses were seldom swept, with
the result that there was an accumulation of litter. Many of the
communal kitchens presented an even worse appearance, food refuse
having been left about, and little attempt seemed to have been made
to clean stoves, sinks or floors. It was doubtful whether the
bathrooms were much used, probably owing to lack of hot water, and
the condition of many of the water closets indicated lack of normal
cleansing.
The method of letting produced a great volume of refuse,
and the number of bins needed could not be housed in the small
front areas and cellars. As a result, some were kept in the flats
and, on collection day, all were brought down and stacked on the
front entrance steps. Some refuse was thrown out of rear windows
into the areas, where it choked the drains.
On 24th November, 1961, a new Housing Act came into
operation providing new powers for dealing with bad living conditions
in houses let in lodgings or occupied by members of more than one
family, (it also makes a number of changes in the law affecting
condemned houses, improvement grants, town development and housing
subsidies.)
The new Act provides, amongst other powers:-
(i) A new power to apply a code of management to individual
houses in which proper standards of management have not
been observed. The requirements of this code are prescribed
in the Housing (Management of Houses in Multiple
Occupation) Regulations, 1962, which came into operation
on 22nd May, 1962.
(ii) Stronger powers to require the provision of additional
facilities and amenities essential to decent living
conditions, and the provision of adequate means of
escape from fire.
(iii) A power for local authorities to carry out works themselves
in default and recover the cost.
(iv) A new power to make a direction limiting the number of
persons who may live in a house, or part of a house,
which is in multiple occupation.
The new powers are designed to deal primarily with the worst
type of multi-occupied house.
Part I of the Regulations mentioned in (i) above deals with
their application and interpretation; Part II prescribes the duties
of management to be discharged by the manager of the house; and